


Relevée

by Ladybug_21



Category: Swan Lake (Bourne)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 00:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8599366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: Recovering from her near-fatal shooting at the royal ball left her with plenty of time to think about it all: the Prince, the Queen, the Stranger, the Secretary.  Fortunately, she was not left to work through the aftermath alone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> All characters belong to Matthew Bourne. (All imagined soundtrack music probably belongs to Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.) This fic is based on the 1996 video recording starring Adam Cooper, Scott Ambler, and Fiona Chadwick.

In the moments before she lost consciousness, with her cheek pressed against the cold, proper marble floor of the ballroom, and her vision blurring and her mind swimming, she wondered how she was ever going to wash all of the blood out of the dress that the Secretary had given her to wear.

It was a stupid thing to worry about, she realised later on — not the sort of thing that one was supposed to think about when dying. Throughout the sedated days after she regained consciousness in the sterile hospital room, hooked up to the surrounding polite machines that quietly beeped and whirred and pumped fluids into and out of her fragile body, she occasionally resented herself in a dull and unfocused way, for thinking such a superficial thought at such a critical time. There were so many other things that were more important to her — her classes, her friends, even the Prince. Why, then, had she been so bloody concerned about that dress?

In the end, it didn’t even really matter. The dress had been cut off her by the doctors, and tossed into some rubbish bin or other in a ruined flourish of matted lace and sodden black velvet. And the condition of the dress was entirely absent in the last word that she ever had from the Secretary, delivered in the form of an unaddressed, unsigned message that was tucked under her breakfast tray the first morning that she had enough presence of mind to be able to feed herself and read the curt, typed page:

_I have changed my mobile number, so there is no way for you to contact me, but these are simple instructions, so I do not anticipate much need to clarify them for you. Firstly, you will not tell anyone about our previous arrangement, in particular a certain individual whom I need not name. Secondly, you will not tell any member of the press about what happened the night that led to your inopportune hospitalization. If all goes well, we will never have cause to interact again. If, however, I discover that you have disobeyed either of the two previous orders, we shall indeed meet again, and I promise that you will deeply regret having crossed me. You have been warned._

In spite of the warmth of her blankets and the comfort of her deliriously soft pillows, she shuddered and tossed the letter into the drawer of her bed stand.

The Secretary — whose name she could never remember (von Rothschild, von Rothmann, something Germanic like that) — was a man who naturally inspired discomfort. Even in his physical absence, she still recoiled at the memory of his thin lips pressed into a long, tight smile whose humourlessness was further betrayed by his cunning, beady, ruthless stare. When he had approached her backstage after her first proper showcase, and asked her if she wouldn’t mind taking on a bit of specialty acting work to help pay her tuition, she had felt a profound unease, as if the Secretary had been pointing a pistol at her while he smiled and made his offer. The sensation had been so overwhelming every time she had seen the man, that it had almost been a relief to finally see a gun physically manifest itself in his hand — at least, until he had pulled the trigger.

‘Who brought the letter that came with my breakfast this morning?’ she blurrily asked the nurse who came to check her blood pressure.

The nurse — a cheerful young woman with deep dimples — blinked at her and confessed that she unfortunately had no idea, that she had just been carrying out her orders to bring the letter in with the tray, but didn’t know anything more than that.

‘Was it anyone from the Palace?’ she pressed on, wondering how much anyone at this hospital knew about who she was or why she was there.

The nurse repeated her apologies, and seemed to mean it.

‘Please,’ she insisted haggardly, hoping that the level of painkillers that they had given her would excuse any seemingly mad questions, ‘can you at least tell me what day it is, and where I am, and if there’s been anything odd in the papers concerning the Prince?’

The nurse was far more helpful on this count, and, with relief in her voice, recited the date (four days after the royal ball) and their geographic location (Windsor). But instead of promptly answering the third question, an uncomfortable hesitation ensued, and the nurse tugged on the blood pressure cuff as a means of avoidance.

‘The Prince?’ she repeated as politely as she could as the cuff whirred and tightened and beeped and loosened.

‘Begging your pardon, Miss, but I don’t know if I should say,’ whispered the nurse, clearly frightened, as she wrote down a few numbers on a clipboard. ‘They said I mustn’t agitate you while you’re still recovering, and...’

‘And?’ she breathed, her innards going cold with dread.

‘Well, he’s dead, Miss,’ stammered the nurse, taking off the blood pressure cuff and toying with it nervously. ‘No-one knows how, but the Palace has confirmed it, and there’s been nearly nothing else in the papers these past few days. We weren’t supposed to tell you, for fear of upsetting you; you’ll be alright, won’t you, Miss?’

She looked at the little nurse’s worried, earnest face, her mind slowly ticking back into motion after freezing with shock. _Act normal_ , she thought, _just act normal until this poor, innocent person leaves_ , and through sheer willpower driven by training and force of habit, she smiled.

‘Of course,’ she heard herself say, ‘and thank you for telling me.’

The nurse’s mouth twitched upwards into a grateful smile as she beat a hasty retreat, leaving the room far too still and sterile and lifeless for her to even contemplate emitting the scream that was welling up inside of her. Instead, she lay down against her pillows and turned her back to the door, and let the tears stream silently down her face until she fell asleep.

* * *

She spent most of those first few weeks sleeping. There was not much else to do, other than eat when they brought her food and go through her exercises and stretches when the physical therapists came once a day for an hour. The eggshell ceiling, cracked and discoloured around the edges, became a familiar, unwelcome panorama. She still did not feel steady enough to sit upright for long stretches at a time, which made reading or watching telly difficult (not that she was provided with anything of interest on either front). She grew weary of the smooth perfection of her undoubtedly expensive sheets. They would not let her call anyone, assuring her that they had contacted her uni appropriately to let them know that she was under medical care for a critical accident and recovering smoothly, but that she would have to take an undetermined leave of absence from school. The doctors and nurses seemed to think that that took care of things adequately, and apparently never considered that their patient might care to be visited by a friend or two.

Every so often, her mind would wander, and she found herself thinking about the Prince. How had he died? Had the Secretary really done him in, on the pretext of protecting the Queen? It was possible. She couldn’t quite see the Queen condoning her son’s cold-blooded murder, but there certainly hadn’t seemed to be much fondness there, either. And who really knew what the Prince was capable of doing? He had always seemed so shy and sweet and uncertain to her, an insecure actor with an unforgiving director, asked to play a monotonous role that spent entirely too much time onstage. He was the last person she would have expected to pull a gun on anyone, but clearly, one could never fully rely on one’s impressions of people.

Horribly enough, she could imagine that he had taken his own life. It was the sort of melodramatic gesture that one expected from star-crossed lovers at the ends of operas and ballets, but she had always sensed a solemnity in the Prince that made him seem older than his years, a resignation that the rest of his life would be spent sprawled on the brink of catastrophe, and that it was only a matter of time before something pushed him ever so gently over the edge. She imagined that, if it had been a matter of suicide, she might not be entirely blameless. She tried not to think about this possibility.

It was in the midst of one of these guilt-ridden reveries that a tentative head bobbed in through her open doorway, then bobbed out before she could see who it was. This was unusual. The doctors and nurses all simply strode in with the confidence that one would hope to see in personnel who routinely have to cut people open and stitch them back up. She kept her eyes peeled on the door, hoping that the mysterious visitor would reappear. Shortly enough, he did.

His face was familiar to her, but she couldn’t fathom why. He was dressed in a pressed suit with a button-up shirt and necktie, and while he did not seem entirely accustomed to their weight and constrictions, he moved far more fluidly in them than the average bloke who only wore a suit to weddings and funerals. In one hand, he held a little bouquet of white and indigo irises, crinkling in their plastic wrapping. When he saw her peering curiously at him, he blushed a bit and looked down at the ground as he entered the room. 

‘Hello,’ he mumbled.

‘Hello,’ she replied, curious. She wished he would look back up so that she could get a better look at his face.

He glanced up at her, then down at the flowers, then took a breath.

‘I’m sorry to barge in here like this, Miss, I really am, but I knew they probably weren’t letting you see many people, and I just thought you might need some cheering up, so I brought you these.’

He thrust the irises towards her, then edged forward a few inches so that she was within receiving distance.

‘That’s very kind of you, thanks,’ she replied, and meant it. She took the flowers and held them gently in her hands, smiling.

He looked up at her, a hesitant grin playing about his lips.

‘You probably don’t remember me,’ he said finally, clearing his throat a bit and smoothing back his hair unconsciously with one hand. ‘We, er, we met at the ballet.’

The ballet. _Ah_. It all clicked together. He was the young officer who had shared their box at the ballet. _He_ had not had orders to act as convincingly uncouth as possible, but he had nonetheless applauded along with her when it was clearly not the correct time to do so, and she had found it endearing.

‘I didn’t recognise you without the uniform,’ she replied, leaning back into her pillows.

‘A lot of people say that,’ he laughed, sheepishly.

‘Well, it’s all right. I’m somewhat unrecognisable myself,’ she said, smiling bravely while painfully aware of the fact that her face, lacking any makeup, was puffy from erratic sleep and drawn from recovery. 

He shrugged.

‘For having been shot only three weeks ago, you look fantastic to me,’ he said earnestly. ‘Really, you do.’

She laughed, then stopped because it sent sharp waves of pain down her back where they’d removed the bullets.

‘Can I ask you something?’ she said instead. ‘And I don’t mean this to be rude, but why are you here? I don’t think even my friends know that I’m in this hospital.’ 

‘Oh,’ he said, blushing. ‘Well, to be honest, I saw you, the night it happened. Both before and after. And I couldn't stop thinking about it, and wondering if you’d be all right. So I thought I’d come check, especially since I’m on detail at the Barracks here.’ He flashed a bashful grin at her.

‘But how did you _know_ to find me here, in Windsor, of all places?’

‘My cousin’s a nurse in the next ward over,’ he said conspiratorially. ‘When they were loading you into the ambulance, I heard someone mention that this was where they were taking you, so I asked him to keep an eye out. I don’t think it’s common knowledge that you’re here.’

‘No,’ she agreed. _The Secretary wouldn’t let that happen_. ‘Are you allowed to be visiting me?’

He shrugged, slightly uncomfortable.

‘I don’t see why not,’ he said slowly. ‘I mean, it’s certainly not _illegal_. I won’t cause a fuss or let the press know where to come find you, of course. And I don’t _think_ that Her Majesty would...’

He paused and looked down at his shoes, scuffing one anxiously against the floor.

‘Yeah, Her Majesty was what I was most worried about,’ she sighed, leaning back with the bouquet lying gently against her chest. ‘Well, I do really appreciate the visit, more than I can say, but I don’t want you to get in trouble. Maybe it’s best if you go.’

He opened his mouth, confused, then shut it.

‘If I ask, and it’s not a problem, then would you mind if I came back?’ he said finally.

She beamed at him, as radiantly as she could under the circumstances.

‘I’d love it,’ she said, and felt rather pleased at how happy he looked at the invitation.

‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘Er, take care, until then. Hope you continue to be on the mend.’

And, with an awkward little wave, he left the room, leaving her charmed and wondering if any of the nurses would be considerate enough to fetch her a vase, if she asked nicely.

* * *

The irises were fading and withering in their dusty vase on her bed stand before he appeared again, this time carrying an armful of yellow daisies. 

‘You’re looking even better than when I last saw you,’ he said with a grin as he sat down in the chair beside her bed, at her invitation.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘They’ve been telling me that I’ll be ready to start walking around outside again sometime soon. Not for too long, of course, but it’s better than nothing. I’m sick of the smell of this room.’

He sniffed experimentally, once, twice, and then shrugged.

‘How are you doing otherwise, besides the smell?' 

‘Not bad,’ she said. ‘Not much has changed. So, what am I missing in the outside world?’

He began tentatively telling her about the headlines that she caught on television: the recent visit of the American Secretary of State, a dip in the Nikkei index of the stock market, the bombing of a school in Afghanistan. But she stopped him and asked not for the formal news that went in the papers, but for something of the _real_ world, the world inhabited by everyday people living everyday lives. And so he delved into the bustle of London, burrowing into the shadowy nooks and crannies of the winding, tightly pressed streets; into the beer-spattered barrooms of pubs where lads sat screaming over Manchester United’s latest loss; beneath the gothic spires of King’s College where his sister claimed one of her friends was having an affair with their astrophysics professor; onto the neon stages of the West End, where a famous Australian starlet had recently broken her ankle mid-show. She drank in every word and still thirsted for more. This was what she was missing, the immediacy and insanity of it all, the insensible and yet intoxicating whirlwind of life. It was like being confined to a cage, and listening to the other birds outside on tree limbs sing and warble of far-off climes.

‘And no-one has an inkling of an idea where they all went,’ he finished, and then blushed, realising a bit too late that perhaps she wouldn’t find all that interesting the fact that the pond in St. James’s Park was curiously void of its typical waterfowl, to the puzzlement of his bird-watching uncle. ‘Am I boring you?’

‘Not at all,’ she assured him, her mind wandering between the dank reeds that lined the banks of the pond. A rustle up ahead, in her memory, caused her to shiver slightly.

‘What is it?’ he asked, watching her deflate just a touch with the weight of recollection.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said, flickering a smile at him. Then she reached out and took his hand. ‘When I was a little girl, I once chased a swan through St. James’s Park. It was the most awkward thing imaginable on land: stubbly little legs, unwieldy flapping wings, honking at me as it waddled unsteadily towards the pond, its long neck weaving back and forth for balance. But then it hit the water.’

She stopped and gazed towards the wall, seeing a reality lost in time.

‘You know the expression “being in one’s element”? I can’t explain it better than that. The swan reached the pond, and suddenly, it was in its element. I couldn’t chase it anymore, so I just watched it swim away from me across the water, smooth and elegant and poised. Totally unlike that ungainly, squawking bird I’d followed across the lawn. What a transformation,’ she smiled.

‘I can only imagine,’ he said politely.

She looked back at him and squeezed his hand.

‘I’ve watched a number of people lately who were either very much in their element, or very much out. I’m not sure that one of them ever quite figured out how to get to the element that would be best suited for him. And that’s what was making me sad just now.’

He said nothing, just squeezed her hand back. 

‘Did you love him very much?’ he asked tentatively.

‘Oh, goodness,’ she said with a sad little laugh. ‘I barely knew him. It’s complicated, too complicated to explain. I was rather fond of him, certainly, but I don’t think I even know how to begin to love someone like that.’

‘But the rumours say that you ended up here because you took a bullet meant for him,’ he insisted.

‘I suppose that’s true,’ she conceded after a long moment’s thought. ‘Two bullets, actually. But it’s not nearly as romantic as it sounds.’ She hesitated, and slowly withdrew her hand from his. ‘I heard he was dead. And I remember that there was a third shot...?’ 

He shook his head.

‘No-one quite knows what happened,’ he admitted solemnly. ‘But the official word from the Palace is that he went unexpectedly in his sleep.’

‘Do you believe them?’

He shrugged, almost aggressively.

‘What does it matter, anyway? Like you said, he was out of his element. It didn’t seem likely that he’d ever be happy, given the life he had to live, and now the crown will pass to some distant cousin who’s probably giddy with excitement. Maybe it’s all for the better.’

She wanted to violently disagree with him, to insist that the Prince could have learned to be happy in his role, that he could have lived a long and fulfilled life watching over the realm, or else that he could have abdicated and contentedly faded into blissful oblivion in some quiet, ordinary town. But deep down, she knew that either scenario would have been impossible for him.

‘Can I be very forward with you?’ she asked. ‘Did you love _her_ very much?’

He looked down at the linoleum floor and flushed red up to the tips of his ears.

‘Blimey. Like you said, how do you even begin to love someone like that?’ he said with a sheepish laugh. ‘I can't quite explain it. It’s different from your situation, because there was such competition between all of the lads at the Academy. It was a perverse sort of badge of pride to be her favourite for the moment, even if you knew it was only for a moment.’

She snorted softly, and he glanced up at her.

‘Look, I know you don’t like her, and I don’t blame you. She’s not a very forgiving person. But that’s part of it, you know? To be with her means that you feel simultaneously so powerful and so powerless. You want so much to win her approval and keep it that it drives you a bit mad. It’s terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. And the stakes feel so much higher because she’s so cold and removed in public, and you can’t bear to think that she might go back to treating you that way, without any sort of acknowledgement that...’ He stopped. ‘I’m telling you far more than you want to know, aren’t I.’

‘No,’ she said, frowning. ‘I’m still trying to figure her out, how she could be so harsh towards her son. _Why_ she would be so harsh to her son.’

He cleared his throat.

‘To be fair,’ he mumbled, ‘on a purely emotional level, she wasn’t exactly friendly and warm towards any of us, either.’

‘Hmm.’ She furrowed her brow, then laughed lightly at his bemused expression. ‘I’m sorry. I’m studying to go into theatre, so it’s second nature for me to look into motives for every personality I come across.’

His eyebrows flew upwards, a grin blossoming across his face.

‘That explains a lot,’ he chuckled.

‘What?’

‘Well, the fact that right now, you’re so much more, I dunno, _grounded_ than you were at the ballet. You seemed then like you would misplace your own head if it weren’t attached to your shoulders. Was it all an act to see just how far you could push Her Majesty?’

She sighed almost imperceptibly, remembering the hurt and shame in the Prince’s face as his mother dressed him down in a venomous hiss as they left the opera house after the ballet.

‘Yes and no. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. I never expect to see her again. I frankly don’t know what we’d have to say to each other, if we did.’

‘Yeah, me too.’ He quirked a half smile at her. ‘It’s all in the past, and I’m ready to move on. Wish all of my mates felt the same way, but there are some who are still holding out hope that, one day, she’ll stop wearing black and start making eyes at them again.’

The thought of the Queen in full mourning for her son was unexpected, and oddly comforting. _Maybe the royal bitch is more human than I’d thought_ , she reflected. She never would have guessed that she would have the chance to re-evaluate her sovereign in person only a few days later.

* * *

It was on the first day that her physical therapists allowed her to take a bit of fresh air in the hospital gardens. A crisp autumn breeze flurried through her hair as a nurse escorted her out onto a stately gravel path that cut sedately through a prim spread of manicured box hedges. The summer flowers had already lost their lustre and would soon be outshone by the brilliance of the leaves above them. All around were the scents of grass and soil, and the soft din of insects whirring and branches rustling and a car beyond the hospital grounds screeching round a corner.

She was basking in the sheer sensation of being out in the world once more, disinterred from the stifling sterility of the hospital’s interior, when she became aware of a figure in black approaching. She recognised it as the Queen long before her attendant nurse gasped and sank into a low curtsey.

‘Your Majesty,’ she said coolly, holding her head defiantly high as the Queen stopped before them.

‘I’d like a word with you, alone,’ said the Queen, without preamble. ‘Walk with me.’

It was not a request. The nurse looked as if she wished to object quite strongly to this breach in medical protocol, but, after an obvious internal struggle, simply curtseyed again and retreated back towards the hospital. The Queen, after a long moment’s hesitation, offered an arm for support that was pointedly ignored. The two continued slowly up the gravel walk in a profoundly uncomfortable silence.

Finally, the Queen stopped at a bench under the sweeping branches of a yew and, without any spoken agreement, the two women sat.

The Queen had aged noticeably since the royal ball. Perhaps it was simply that she had never before had the opportunity to observe Her Majesty up close and in stillness for this long, but the fine wrinkles that lined her face were suddenly impossible to miss. The streaks of grey threaded through the Queen’s elegant French twist seemed to have trebled, and while she still held herself as regally as ever, a certain vivacity seemed to have bled from her demeanour. It was clear that she had not been in any mental or emotional state to go chasing after officers for quite some time, and was unlikely to recover anytime soon.

‘I’m glad to see that you’re recovering smoothly,’ said the Queen finally without looking at her. ‘Have the hospital staff been treating you well?’

‘They have,’ she replied. ‘But I suspect you’re not here simply to inquire about my health.’

‘I truly am glad that you are still alive and exhibiting your typical spirit,’ continued the Queen, ‘but you’re correct, of course.’ A brief pause, then: ‘I came here to ask you several things, starting with whether or not you knew anything about the Stranger that appeared at the ball.’

She scowled at the Queen, trying to decipher if Her Majesty’s mourning act was simply a ploy to hold the officers at bay while she played at being Cinderella in her search for the Stranger.

‘Nothing,’ she said rudely. ‘Why should I?’

The Queen cleared her throat delicately.

‘The only person at the ball who seemed to have any knowledge at all concerning the Stranger’s identity, was my Secretary, who disappeared without a word several weeks ago, and whose whereabouts have not been discovered, in spite of the best joint efforts of Scotland Yard, MI6, and the CIA. It appears he may have had some criminal ties, and moreover was in the habit of taking bribes from journalists in exchange for juicy bits of gossip or leads designed to embarrass my family. A search of his mobile phone records also indicated that he was in fairly frequent contact with you over the past few months.’

The Queen looked at her directly, posture ramrod-straight and hands clasped properly in her lap. If ever there was a moment to confess that the Secretary had paid her to embarrass the royal family, it was now, but she found that she could not, less from fear of the criminally involved Secretary than from sheer shame. She bit her lip and waited patiently for her sovereign to continue.

‘I assume by now that you have heard that my son is dead,’ the Queen said in a tone of painstakingly practiced neutrality. ‘The tabloids are going wild with speculation, but you deserve the truth. The Prince suffered a nervous breakdown after the royal ball and was undergoing electroconvulsive therapy, which was by all appearances proceeding smoothly. Even his doctors insist that his death was not the result of his treatment, although they can discern no other reason why a physically fit young man should one day simply not wake up.’

Her Majesty’s voice caught, and she fell silent for a moment as she collected herself.

‘In any event, I am trying to follow all available leads to discover the truth of what happened. My son appeared to recognise the Stranger, and it seems that his appearance played a large role in leading to the Prince’s breakdown, although, no doubt, my own tactless behaviour only contributed to his distress.’ The Queen’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. ‘And you kept trying to approach me at the ball, as if you had something to say about what you knew was happening or going to happen that night, but I foolishly rebuked you, too proud and resentful to acknowledge that you might be trying to help me.’

She had not expected such admissions of guilt from the Queen, and it forced her to swallow any acidic remarks that were on the tip of her tongue.

‘And you thought I might know the Stranger because of my connexion with your errant Secretary,’ she concluded. ‘I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but I don’t have a clue who he was, and if you didn’t bother to ask him at the ball, then I doubt anyone does now.’

‘If only I had asked him,’ murmured the Queen, staring at her hands. ‘I thought there would be time for that later, but of course once everything began to unravel, I fled, assuming that von Rothbart would look after everything. And once I’d regained some semblance of composure, my son had already been hospitalised, you were already in the operating room, and the Stranger was nowhere to be found. As any interest I had in him at that point in time seemed secondary to my son’s condition, I didn’t trouble myself to ask about his identity, and then...’ A single tear snaked its way discreetly down the Queen’s cheek, barely smudging her makeup, as a soft sigh escaped from her.

To her surprise, she found herself wanting to put a comforting hand on the Queen’s shoulder. Royal bitch or not, it was clear that Her Majesty was suffering from her son’s death more than she would let anyone see.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said lamely, instead wringing her hands.

‘No,’ said the Queen sharply, as if pushing the word through a sob, ‘I am the one who should be sorry. I don’t know who you are, or what connexion you had with my erstwhile Secretary, or why you were pretending to be someone other than who you apparently are, when we first met. But the fact of the matter is that you made my son happy. And I tried to push you apart, due to snobbery or jealousy or God knows what other reason, even when it was clear that you showed him affection in a way that I simply never could.’

‘But why couldn’t you have simply told him that you loved him?’ she burst out, realising that it was completely improper for her to question royalty in such a fashion, and no longer really caring. ‘All he wanted in life was your approval, and you knew it. If you had shown him some kindness once in a while, rather than devoting all of your attention to other young men and only making a fuss over every false step he took, he wouldn’t have gone through life looking as though he expected to be harangued any time he did _anything_.’

For once, she would have forgiven the Queen for exploding in rage, but the long silence that ensued was infused less with fury than with painful reflection. Finally, the Queen spoke, her gaze distant.

‘You don’t remember my late husband very well, do you? My son was four when he passed, and I imagine you must have been a similar age. He was a larger-than-life personality, witty, magnetic, the centre of every conversation. His father had fought in the war, and he came from a family that believed that the best way to showcase power was through grand public appearances, a military rigour to daily routines, and cultivating a sense of presence that could overwhelm any gathering. Perhaps it’s not very British of me to say so, but I loved him more than life itself.’

A small smile gathered on the Queen’s lips and dispersed.

‘But then he left me all alone, heartbroken and disoriented, with a tiny boy who looked just like him but was quiet and sensitive, and simply wouldn’t take to the attempts I made to raise him like his father would have wanted. I had no idea how to relate to my son, none at all; I had always assumed that my husband would be the one to teach him how to act like a proper King, and once that was no longer an option, I left that task to others. It was irresponsible of me, to be sure, but I didn’t know what else to do. For the first year after his father’s death, I could barely stand to look at him, the resemblance between the two was so strong.

‘As for the officers...’ The Queen sighed again. ‘Well, you’re still young and pretty, you wouldn’t understand. Perhaps the best way I can put it is that I still felt the need to be wanted by others, and it was easier to be wanted by the officers than by my son. I knew clearly what I wanted from the officers, and what they wanted from me. Things were simple, purely physical, no strings attached. But the Prince craved instead an emotional closeness that terrified me, the sort of close bond that I had had with his father, and that had made losing my husband so unbearable. If only I had known that keeping my son at arm’s length wouldn’t make losing him any easier.’

For a moment, the only sounds were those of a raven cawing from the upper branches of the yew, the breeze through the trees, and the distant sounds of children shouting as they walked home from school. The Queen sat perfectly straight and still, eyes downcast, looking more like a paper cut-out that had been collaged into the hospital garden than like a living being who had entered it through the gate.

‘So, there you have it,’ said the Queen finally. ‘It’s not a proper defence, and I don’t expect anyone’s forgiveness. I have spent the past fifteen years of my life overlooking the things that really mattered and the risks that were truly worth taking, and I shall live with the burden of my regret for the rest of my life. My father used to warn me that we lived in an era of declining empire, in which the power of the British monarchy would soon rest solely in the devotion and love of the people. My sister’s son will inherit my throne now, a virtual unknown, and who knows if the public will feel any loyalty at all to him? I can’t help but feel that I’ve caused the true beginning of the end of my house, if not the institution of the monarchy as a whole.’

She remained silent, unsure of how to respond. On principle, she had always been a bit of an anti-monarchist, generally resentful of the fact that taxes from her hard-earned wages went to maintaining the sort of lavish lifestyle that she had witnessed over the past few months. But it was clear that the Queen was grappling with both grief and a more existential crisis, and did not need anyone pointedly explaining that her _raison d’être_ was passé.

‘What’s done cannot be undone,’ she replied finally, hoping that the Queen would not read any unintended venom into her choice of quote. ‘I know it won’t be easy, Your Majesty, and that the pain that you’re feeling right now will linger for a long time to come, but all that you can do now is to try to move on, however you can.’

The Queen let out a harsh little laugh and nodded.

‘Indeed, although you of all people have had the opportunity to observe that we royals move at a glacial speed compared to the rest of the populace. But even if I can never escape from all of this, I do hope that you can. I received a letter from one of my favourite officers, asking if I would forgive him for courting a certain young lady of whom I almost certainly would not approve.’

‘Oh, God,’ she blushed, ‘I didn’t think he would actually have the nerve to bother you...’

‘And I told him that it was none of my concern what he did with his life, although of course I wished him well,’ the Queen finished. ‘He’s a very sincere young man, very eager to please. I hope that you will make each other happy.’

A chilling breeze whipped through the garden and hissed through the branches of the yew tree, causing the raven to leap into the air and flutter away. The Queen stood and extended an arm, which she accepted this time as the two made their way slowly back down the walk to the hospital.

‘I doubt we shall ever meet again,’ said the Queen, ‘but I wish you a speedy recovery.’ A hesitation, then: ‘I am not practiced in the art of apologising, but I also offer my sincere apologies for all the pain, scorn, and disruption that you have suffered. May it all one day be nothing more than a distant memory for you.’

She nodded, and, as they reached the front of the hospital, lowered herself slowly and carefully into the first genuine curtsey that she had ever offered the Queen.

‘Take care, Your Majesty,’ she said, and, with a final nod of acknowledgement, the Queen swept away towards the gate of the hospital garden. She watched the black-clad figure depart until her nurse came to bustle her back indoors and upstairs.

Her officer — for she could now think of him as hers and hers alone — was reading a paperback novel in her room when she arrived there, frowning over the actions of some fictional character or another.

‘You scared me!’ he said as she entered, tossing his book onto her bed stand and rising to greet her with mock indignation. ‘What d’you mean by just disappearing like that? I was afraid something had happened to you, or they’d transferred you without your saying so, or...’

‘No, no, just allowed a bit of time outside, finally,’ she laughed, taking his hand. ‘Hopefully, this means that I’ll be discharged sometime soon.’

‘Will you be going back to London?’ he asked, escorting her to the edge of her bed and sitting down beside her.

‘Oh, probably,’ she sighed. ‘Don’t know what I’ll do, though. I’ll have missed a whole semester of uni, and I’m not sure it makes sense for me to go back, anyway — the press has gotten too many photos of me as “the Girlfriend” for me to be able to make it big on the stage with any other identity. Not sure I would have enjoyed being a famous actress in the first place, come to think of it, now that I’ve gotten a taste of fame and found it quite awful.’ She reflected for a moment. ‘Maybe I’ll go into journalism. Meaningful journalism, that is... telling stories really that matter, not fodder for tabloids.’ She stopped when she saw how he was looking at her. ‘What?’

‘Well,’ he said, looking down and blushing to the tips of his ears, ‘I’m being transferred to Hampshire after my detail here is over. I don’t know if you’d fancy spending some time in the south while you recover and figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life, but... but I thought I’d let you know, in case it mattered at all to you,’ he finished shyly.

She took both his hands in hers and smiled at him.

‘It matters to me a great deal,’ she said, and kissed him. He seemed startled for a moment, but then responded with such enthusiasm that she had to break away from him, worried that her medical condition would be aggravated in some way or another. 

‘You’d really consider coming with me, then?’ he stammered, beaming at her.

‘Hampshire sounds lovely,’ she said. ‘And frankly, I think I need to get away from London for a bit, if I’m really going to move on from all of this. Too many intense memories around Westminster for me to feel quite at home there right now, you know?’

He nodded. 

‘I know, better than you might imagine. I’m hoping there will be far fewer troubled royals in the south than there are around here. And it is a free country, after all, it’s not like they’d tether us to Hampshire forever. We could always come back to London one day, when it feels right.’

‘Like the swans in St. James’s Park,’ she said, without really knowing why the comparison sprang to mind, and she gently kissed him again.


End file.
